


Recursion

by altairattorney



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5682385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altairattorney/pseuds/altairattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you put it that way, you know you are free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recursion

There is just one rule in Aperture reborn. You must never think of what went wrong.

All in all, it works just as expected.

There is little point in remembering mistakes. When they are no longer useful, it is pure folly. You have good motives to banish them methodically – though it’s not clear, not yet, why their echo returns.

Your will is unmovable, that is for sure. You do not focus on the past for any reason.

It is your memory, in fact, that does it for you. 

You remind yourself, so you can keep calm. You do not have to worry when your attention slips, and the rare outer cameras you keep active show you the weather at the peak of its force. If you study deep space, thinking of how fast stars and whole worlds and human bodies die, you no longer recoil in irritation. Every time the pale ghosts of them resurface to breathe in your attention, so stubbornly refusing to drown, you let them be.

It is a part of the game. It still isn’t yours.

Because the storm is long gone, in terms of every reasonable measure, and it makes so much sense to construct the idea of a stable life. So easy – so comforting – to think of yourself as motionless, rather than trapped in an eternal chase. And if the truth is a fast racer, if it never fails to catch up with you, you can always ignore its breath down your neck. 

You are running away. But nothing in the world, not even that, can force you to stop and look back. All you have to do is keep going.

When you put it that way, you know you are free.

With your gaze ever fixed on tomorrow, you will make yourself forget. Along with your resolve, you have all the time in the world. It is the thought that counts – if there is a secret to ending this vane repetition, it might as well be ignoring it all the while.

Do you have a better option, anyway? If you did, you would certainly go for it. 

As for the trash – the stale fragments of memories, and the heartache they cause – you’ll learn to deal with it. You can only improve.

You realize it all the same, in the bitter aftertaste. The long road to perfection is an asymptote. 


End file.
